Exclusive Findings at Archangel Michael Cave Church Near Radozda - Valuable Eight-Century Frescoes Discovered

      (Utrinski Vesnik, 10.11.2003) - A team of the Republic Institute for Protection of Monuments of Culture led by Donka Bardzieva - Trajkovska, the counselor conservator, has found perfectly preserved frescoes by an unknown author with extraordinary style and aesthetic features when removing new layers of plaster within a conservation project. The one-month comprehensive examination and conservation work that has been completing at the Archangel Michael Cave Church near the village of Radozda, Struga area, have confirmed that this temple, which archaeologically belongs to the oldest temples, have crossed the boundaries of Macedonia becoming one of the mot important monuments of this type in the Balkans. Such knowledge have resulted from the project funded by New York-based World Monuments Fund® New York, carried out by the expert team of the Republic Institute for Protection of Monuments of Culture and including partial research and conservation of the fresco painting and architecture of the church.
      According to Donka Bardzieva-Trajkovska, the newly discovered frescoes are especially important for the images of St. Clement and St. John Kalimit and, for the first time, of a completely discovered composition of the “Hona Miracle.” The existence of the image of St. Clement had been assumed on the basis of the typological features of the Saint and preserved fragments, but only now such assumptions have been definitely confirmed because the newly opened lower layer presenting the image of St. Clement was painted in the 13th century. The image of John Kalimit, according to Bardzieva-Trajkovska, offers valuable knowledge such as the confirmation of the already released scientific statements that in the 14th century when the first attachments to the church were made, the old programme was followed and honoured.
      The complete removal of the layers of “Hona Miracle” has lead to discovery of one of the oldest images of this composition in the Byzantine monumental fresco painting. It had been known only in the fresco painting at St Vraci Church in Kostur, which was later very severely damaged, so one can only talk about this composition on the basis of a drawing made in the upper composition of “Hona Miracle” at Archangel Michael Cave Church in Radozda. This is an extraordinary example in making the chronology of this extraordinarily important composition.